You keep using the word demographics as if that’s something specific that’s causing all of this trouble. Do you know what the word means?
“Demographics” is not a specific thing that causes a change, demographics are statistics that measure certain factors of a population.
If you’re going to use that term, you really need to be more specific about WHICH statistics regarding the population are changing and in what directions and why.

dentarthurdent on April 8, 2013 at 3:04 PM

Reread my posts, I am very clear about what factors to which I am referring.

Historically, government took a whole lot smaller percentage of the economic fruits than it does now, with family sizes a whole lot larger than now. Both facts allowed for a lower percentage of the populace to work back then.

Steve Eggleston on April 8, 2013 at 7:35 PM

Of course, there was also less income, particularly the taxable sort, back then. Even so, having around 1/3 of the workforce support the rest, whether through government or their own initiative, is nothing new. There is also much much more going on here, income taxes are not how all levels of government support themselves for instance. I was mainly pointing out the use of the wrong population group and also that throwing out a percentage like that is not by itself bad.

You mean adults, not workforce. 53% of the workforce pays taxes in that scenario. Having 34% of adult support society isn’t unusual, and given the time period you compare it to can be considered high. Right now, using your system, 27% of people support the other 73%, but prior to the industrial revolution the number would have been 20-25%. Before 1970 only about 33% of the population worked, not sure how you define what share financed the rest but it would have been near to today.

jarodea on April 8, 2013 at 1:45 PM

Historically, government took a whole lot smaller percentage of the economic fruits than it does now, with family sizes a whole lot larger than now. Both facts allowed for a lower percentage of the populace to work back then.

]]>By: JohnD13http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6864312
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:14:22 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6864312The thing about the last chart that strikes me is not the recent decline, but rather the rapid growth during the Reagan years. Just look at 1980-1988!

Now, Obama is destroying all of that growth.

I see a whole series of ads stating, “The Democrats want to ROLL BACK THE CLOCK! They want to go back to the days of Jimmy Carter – the unemployment, the stagflation, the long gas lines. Next thing you know, they’ll want the black to be hauling their luggage just like the good old days!” Or, maybe that was just Bill Clinton.

There is definitely way more going on here, there’s demographics, this policy/that policy, growth in part-time/temp work vs full-time, and yes also the growth of the shadow economy which used to be near non-existent in the US.

jarodea on April 8, 2013 at 2:27 PM

You keep using the word demographics as if that’s something specific that’s causing all of this trouble. Do you know what the word means?
“Demographics” is not a specific thing that causes a change, demographics are statistics that measure certain factors of a population.
If you’re going to use that term, you really need to be more specific about WHICH statistics regarding the population are changing and in what directions and why.

]]>By: Socrateasehttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863776
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:48:02 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863776So Obama has pretty much rolled back all the economic progress the Reagan administration produced, and all the anti-terrorism progress Bush produced, and brought us back to the economics and middle-east policies of Carter, plus a nuclear Iran, a threatening nuclear Korea, and Europe on the edge of economic collapse.

I predicted Obama would be worse than Carter 8 months before his election, but I have to admit that he has exceeded my expectations.

None of these statistics capture people who have stopped working in the taxable economy. I’m guessing a huge and growing number are working and doing fine, but they aren’t working in jobs that the government knows about. They are in the all-cash economy, and the barter economy. I have three such people in my own family; one has not paid a dime of income or payroll taxes in over 30 years, two other younger ones recently “dropped out of the labor force” but you can bet they are working plenty in cash jobs.

Other older adults are truly long-term unemployed in fields like construction and mortgage lending that died in the crash. Those jobs are never coming back. I also know two people who were laid off in their late 50s and are just scraping by on their savings until they turn 59 1/2 and could retire.

rockmom on April 8, 2013 at 2:00 PM

There is definitely way more going on here, there’s demographics, this policy/that policy, growth in part-time/temp work vs full-time, and yes also the growth of the shadow economy which used to be near non-existent in the US.

Nevertheless, it’s not so simple as to say these numbers don’t include the shadow economy. The numbers are from the household survey where people are simply asked if they are working or not. Whether or not the 2 people in your family who “dropped out of the labor force” are counted or not depends entirely on if they tell a surveyor that they are working or not. The surveyor has no clue if they are telling the truth, or working in the shadow economy. It only matters how they answer.

Now I agree that someone in the shadow economy is more likely to tell a surveyor they are not working, but some percentage will which means these numbers are not entirely missing them.

]]>By: tom daschle concernedhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863647
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:05:49 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863647Keep voting democrat!
]]>By: rockmomhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863627
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:00:00 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863627None of these statistics capture people who have stopped working in the taxable economy. I’m guessing a huge and growing number are working and doing fine, but they aren’t working in jobs that the government knows about. They are in the all-cash economy, and the barter economy. I have three such people in my own family; one has not paid a dime of income or payroll taxes in over 30 years, two other younger ones recently “dropped out of the labor force” but you can bet they are working plenty in cash jobs.

Other older adults are truly long-term unemployed in fields like construction and mortgage lending that died in the crash. Those jobs are never coming back. I also know two people who were laid off in their late 50s and are just scraping by on their savings until they turn 59 1/2 and could retire.

For all the arguing about 2000-2003 vs the last four years, is anyone paying any attention that there isn’t even the slightest hint in the first chart posted above that the trend is going anywhere but further down?

Even just a levelling off at at a 34 year low would be considered some kind of victory at this point.

parke on April 8, 2013 at 11:53 AM

Well, until the Baby Boomers are worked through the system the participation will have a large negative drag on it which will until the 2030’s make the natural rate lower than it is now.

So if only 63% are working and 47% of those pay no net income tax, then the country is being financed by (approx.) 34% of the workforce?

It’s a good thing there are rich people and businesses to tax. /s

TerryW on April 8, 2013 at 1:04 PM

You mean adults, not workforce. 53% of the workforce pays taxes in that scenario. Having 34% of adult support society isn’t unusual, and given the time period you compare it to can be considered high. Right now, using your system, 27% of people support the other 73%, but prior to the industrial revolution the number would have been 20-25%. Before 1970 only about 33% of the population worked, not sure how you define what share financed the rest but it would have been near to today.

]]>By: TheHitmanhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863420
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:04:25 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863420Any chance the folks leaving the job market are the boomers who put off retirement during the crash? Their 401K’s should have recovered by now (if they bucked what they SHOULD have been doing and continued to ride the market rather than move into “safe” investments…which is why they had to put off retirement in the first place), to the point where they have their nest egg back and don’t need the aggravation of having to work anymore?
]]>By: TerryWhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863421
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:04:22 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863421So if only 63% are working and 47% of those pay no net income tax, then the country is being financed by (approx.) 34% of the workforce?

I have noticed the last 4 years how you seem to have a lot of pundits, forecasters and general boot lickers that have the word ‘unexpected’ or other similar word of phrase in their look at recently released vital information on the economy. In general my cat can do better than that, so does coin tossing.

Since you are running short on subscribers and circulation is down, you might want to perk things up by getting rid of any of those said individuals who haven’t been able to get their predictions/forecasts/outlooks right a total of 3 times and fire them. Hire some panhandler off the street which will have the two fold effect of increasing the accuracy of your reports, removing proto-zombies from your workforce and cutting the bottom line cost of employment simultaneously.

It is your incapacity to deal with the actual world, to actually report truthfully on real word events and to otherwise migrate your op-ed to every page of the paper that has caused one early subscriber, namely myself, to quit getting your cat toy output of flattened paper balls that need to be wadded up. I’m not coming back, sorry to say, but you might be able to get some of your recent deserters back if you just got rid of the reporters/analysts/boot lickers who can’t bother to tell things like they are and leave the spin for the next paragraph. Sadly, all those hours in journolistim school has left your workforce unable to write stories, analyze events and even get the box scores right. Your demise, while somewhat melancholy, is richly deserved as it is self-inflicted. Only you can stop it.

Join the 21st century.

Because now you are being pushed out of the way.

Of course you can’t predict that. Look at who you have doing the analyses!

You may have seen this by now, but go there to understand my comment a little better.

DanMan on April 8, 2013 at 12:03 PM

Thanks.

]]>By: Silvergoathttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863227
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:22:39 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863227Betsy Stevenson “I get concerned because there are a lot of people who have useful and productive skills that could really contribute to the economy”.

What she really means is that there are a lot of people who could and should be working in order to transfer their income to the Democrat’s constituency. Bad serfs! No gruel for you!

that is a clever cover of Melissa Harris-Perry’s take on children applied to jobs (read: income).

]]>By: Steve Egglestonhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863135
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:03:15 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863135As for the trend the WaPo was trying to establish, it actually started with the dot-com crash in mid-2000, not the NBER-whitewash of mid-2001.
]]>By: dirtengineerhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863105
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:55:13 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863105People….PEOPLE….
Shame on you.
Is this any way to speak of the President.
Is “rat eared wonder” a perjorative for “Lying POS, afirmative action, jugheaded nuckle dragging organ grinder monkey, Kenyan Marxist userper?
Shocked…I’m shocked at the lack of respect /s
III/0317
]]>By: parkehttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863096
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:53:04 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863096For all the arguing about 2000-2003 vs the last four years, is anyone paying any attention that there isn’t even the slightest hint in the first chart posted above that the trend is going anywhere but further down?

Even just a levelling off at at a 34 year low would be considered some kind of victory at this point.

]]>By: GarandFanhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863061
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:43:48 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863061WaPo still backing that loser in the White House.
]]>By: jarodeahttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/wapo-say-there-seems-to-be-a-lot-fewer-workers-these-days/comment-page-1/#comment-6863005
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:28:11 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=253643#comment-6863005Further, you can see the “booming above trend economy sucks in marginal workers” in the 1980’s. The late 80’s saw a large boom, participation peaked at 66.7% or so, then dropped and didn’t hit that figure again until the tech boom was away and off in 1997. That was despite demographics helping the participation rate in Clinton’s first term.
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